Nobel Women’s Initiative blog

by Jane Gabriel, openDemocracy’s program director

“There comes a time when you lose your fear and thing are never quite the same again.”

The fact that we are in Ireland is having a powerful effect on us all – because amidst the terrible stories, the attempts to analyse, explain and come up with new solutions to end conflict and build peace , we have the constant reminder of how peace has been achieved in Northern Ireland. Women from the peace process – Ann Carr and Bronagh Hinds are here along with Betty Williams and Mairead Corrigan Maguire and others. It’s impossible to not share their joy.

Anne Carr and Bronagh Hinds talked us through the determination and the imagination it took; the painstaking, careful, detailed, dangerous work that the women of Northern Ireland have undertaken since 1976 in the name of peace. When they said that “there comes a time when you lose your fear and thing are never quite the same again”, it captured the spirit of the story they told.

The message was that “peace-building is hard work”- it involves suffering, keeping your feet on the ground while you try to convince all parties that in really understanding violence, there is the understanding that it will never work, that there will never be a winner, that we are all losers. Ann had spent two years visiting prisons, working on her own with 46 men every two weeks –and dialogue, being able to think through what the other side needed, was the key to the eventual change of heart and minds.

The women talked of the goal of inclusivity at all levels and at all times – the only negative comment was from Bronagh about some of the feminists she’d known to whom she’d said “we are living, managing, resolving transitioning from conflict and you want us to try and transform the whole of society too? Give us a break!”.

Hinds had said at some point that while we can’t supplant one conflict on another we can and must “listen carefully for grains of assistance”.

When Mairead Corrigan Maguire spoke to the whole conference she said “your stories resonate with us. We hope that by you knowing that if we can keep hope alive we can make a difference”.

There are all sorts of tensions and struggles going on here at the conference as women from thirty countries with immense experience, suffering, determination and skills refuse to give up the struggle to end violence – and try to empower each other by exchanging views and experiences. “Listening for grains of assistance” is what everyone is doing here. So when Hibaaq Osman from Somalia spoke I realised how this can work. She said “when the Irish were speaking I said yes, yes! – I thought they were speaking about Somalia, my country!”. She explained that in working at the height of the conflict in Somalia the hardest thing was to have the humility, the respect and the openness to understand the culture of her own country, to start by being yourself, to make mistakes, and that only then had she been able to help bring people from all sides to the table, to persuade them that they would be listened to, respected and recognised.

Her message was a mixed one, for although she had recognised the lessons from the Irish peace work, she was adamant that there is no role for donor agencies and the international community in solving other people’s conflicts, that they should “shut up and if they want to support us, and get out of our way” – a comment that sparked heated discussion amongst some participants well into the night.